Today’s show is the first of several episodes covering the construction of a shelving and drawer set. A good friend of the family approached me about building two tall shelving units and two short units with drawers.

All four pieces would stand on top of solid maple bases and the drawer fronts would be solid maple also. These would be left natural with a clear finish while the shelving units and drawer bodies will be painted a glossy white.

The entire project, except the base and drawers themselves, will be made from MDO – medium density overlay. This is my first experience with MDO and as we’ll talk about in the final wrap-up episode, it won’t be my last.

Comments (12)

Sites That Link to this Post

Very nice Matt. I think its these “simple” projects that sometimes have the most impact on the customer. The get what they want built the their specs but with materials that don’t cost an arm and a leg.

Thanks for checking out the show! I ended up using coarse screws with the MDO. The main reason was that MDO is actually a softwood plywood and the coarse screws grab amazingly well. It’s the same thing when I use sheets of MDF too.

The paint is coming out really nice. Unlike traditional plywood, the surfaces don’t get fuzzy if you use a latex paint and the coverage is pretty nice.

I’ve been catching your your show on blip tv and enjoying it very much. I have a question, your going to paint the shelves with latex, are you concerned that the latex never really cures and things will stick to it over time on the shelves. I’m finishing up an entertainment ctr for a friend who wants it painted and I’m a little concerned about latexThanks.

The concern about the paint possibly sticking to items sitting on it has sat in the back of my mind for a long time. But a few years ago I built a lot of shelves for an old boss of mine. They wanted it painted also and I used a similar paint for those too.

They have a monster book collection and to this day I have yet to hear of any problems with it. In fact they asked to have more built last year.